BAM : The Matrix for Rating Your Brand
BAM — The matrix that captures all of brand essence
BAM is the branding research and assessment tool we’ve developed over years of conducting brand equity research for brand managers, advertising agencies, and branding shops. It distills our way of thinking about, and measuring brand essence. It’s simple, yet robust. It’s simple because the sum total of brand equity, –your brand, or your competition — can be captured in a 15 cell ratings matrix, thus Brand Assessment Matrix, or BAM. It can be used for internal measurements of brand equity among your employees and sales reps; and externally to guide to brand equity survey design to measure formally brand equity research among customers and prospects.
The Basics of Brand — They’re the same for all brands, including yours.
Measuring Brand Equity does not have to be complicated. Why? Because the same core components of brand run across all product catgegories, young and old brands, famous or not. Old brands, like Coke; new brands like Google; large share brands like Microsoft, and the millions of small share brands; they all have the same three core components. And, they can be rated on the same five core qualities that determine whether a brand is a winner, or not. Plain and simple.
Three Core Elements of Brand
The first step in understanding and evaluating the strength of your brand is to dissect brand into its core elements. There are three. The pictures, ads, and slogans are merely one of them.
1. Value bundle : the tangible benefits delivered to customers;
2. Brand promise: this is the promise the brand makes to customers; it is how it connects to what customers need;
3. Brand picture: things we see such as products, logos, and ads
The Five Qualities of Great Brands
There are only five core traits or qualities that a brand decision maker . As we’ve looked, researched, and analyzed brands – the great, the good, and the bombs– these five traits appear time and again to distinguish great brands from others.
1. Contact – Great brands make and maintain contact by effectively communicating via advertising and personal selling.
2. Consistency – Great brands create a consistent experience for customers time after time. Consistency builds trust, reliability, and loyalty.
3. Concentration – Great brands concentrate their energy on doing a few things well. Customers clearly know what it’s about. Customers are not confused.
4. Connection – Great brands make connection on a person-to-person level that customers relate to and remember. The connection is made in a way that makes the customer feel they are more than a member of a market segment. Brand advocates appear as the connection grows.
5. Leadership – A great brand establishes leadership somewhere, somehow. It becomes recognized for this leadership by having followers. Its recognition may come from a unique product design, the way it talks to the market, or some other quality of its name, voice, or message.
The Measurement Elegance of the Brand Assessment Matrix
By measuring the 5 Qualities of brand within each of the 3 Brand Components, there are a number of evaluations that can be made.
- Determine relative strengths and weaknesses for each brand quality totaled for all components. Are you strong on making contact, but weak on consistency? Do you have a solid concentration score, but are not seen as a leader?
- What is your relative score on each of the three components when you sum the scores for each of the five qualities? For example, do you have a highly creative, high impact brand picture (great ads and logos), yet have a substandard value bundle of features and benefits that don’t compare to the competition?
This note is merely a starter of how BAM works. Our proprietary research engagements and associated tools implement the BAM System(TM) through 1)internal surveys of management, customer service and support staff, and sales teams; and through 2) branding research surveys of customers and prospects, with detailed comparison drill downs among target and relevant market segments.
To wrap up, here’s the benefits…
- BAM is a brand equity method that is easy to understand.
- It can be used to measure both internal and external brand equity.
- BAM quickly identifies actionable strengths and weaknesses. You can do something about the results immediately because they are so pinpoint and precise.
- You need not hop from one brand method to another, due to the common sense practicality of BAM.
Power Decisions Group implements branding research using our proprietary BAM System.
BAM : The Matrix for Rating Your Brand by Thomas Brown, Senior Consultant, Power Decisions Group is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.powerdecisions.net.
